Wednesday, December 16, 2009

First client for machine quilting

My first friend/client brought me their quilt top to be quilted for her today.  It is gorgeous.  Red background floral print stack n whack into 36 octogans with black sashing strips.  The pattern is called Venetian Tiles.  It is stunning.  I got it spray basted tonight but that is all that I am doing tonight.   I am taking a short break now to recuperate from a rather busy day and week, so far.  It has been a very successful week so far. 

On another note.  We held a second day of  quilt/craft sale at work and once again we did very well.  Definitely well worth our time to take all of our creations in to work.   Hopefully, we will have enough time to make up more inventory for another craft fair in March.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Sales are good!

Today at work, my friend Tina and I, had a mini craft fair.  She and I brought in all of our quilts/jewelry/purses/socks etc.etc. etc.... and we had a great response.   We both sold a lot.  Tina had a really super day.   We did learn a couple of things for next year if we chose to do this again.  We need to bring our stuff in earlier, like the end of Oct to beginning of Nov.   We need to include some more items for little girls and little boys.  We also need to get the word out a little sooner.  We had a great response though and it seemed that everyone was pleased to see what we had.  We need gather some more new ideas to for next time.  Tina's jewelry was a big hit and she also makes fleece slipper socks that were snatched up really fast.  A good return on our efforts.  We will keep this in mind for another year.    Merry Christmas.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

New Quilt Idea

Sometimes you can get the best quilt ideas in the strangest places.  Today at church, during the sermon, sorry Pastor Jay, my mind wondered to a fabulous quilt to make.  Several years ago, Katie, who prefers to be called Kate now, was with one of her friends and they were playing amateur photographer, well, several of the photos are great by the way.  This one of her is of her sitting on the floor, cross legged, in a ballerina costume, the photo was taken from above and behind her.  It is softly muted and sepia toned.  Her hair is pulled back in a bun.  Very beautiful, very contemplative.  I had this thought of making that photo into a rather large wallhanging/quilt for her.  I am posting this here so that if I perchance forget this great idea, someday I will reread this post and remind myself of this great quilt yet waiting to be created. 

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Unto Us a Child is Born



This quilt was made for our church for Christmas. It was made by my friend Pat Steckler and myself. It is fused applique, done in 4 separate panels, quilted individually and then all sewn together into one piece. Commercial batik fabrics used. This came as a kit with the fabrics supplied in the kit. It was very fun to put together and then I did the quilting while Pat then got to do the hand finishing work.

some of this years works


This quilt is titled "Soar with the Eagles"
This was made for my boss's son who made eagle scout to commemmorate his accomplishment.
Techinque: Vertical convergence, hand dyed fabrics mixed with a commercial panel that was manipulated to get added depth, fused applique and custom machine quilted.
I don't have the actual dimensions but it is approximately 48x36.

Down to Business

I have done a lot of prep work for starting my machine quilting business today. My friend Tina helped me with my price list, customer information sheet, order forms and business cards.

I was reviewing some of my old posts here that I did last year and there is one on my goals. I reviewed those and found that they still apply now even though I did not keep up with them over the last year.

I plan on posting here at least weekly and to post photos of my latest work so that others will be able to see the work that I am doing and to see where my new business endeavor takes me.

I am very excited and hope to encourage others to step out and to reach their true potential and accomplish their goals.

I hope and pray that everyone has a very Merry Christmas and yes let's please keep Christ in Christmas.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Reorganization of Studio

Check out this makeover.


























I am taking an online class called Go! Get Organized by Alyson Stanfield. Here are some before pictures of my studio, clutter everywhere, projects left out where I last worked on them, and just too much stuff in general. This class has been a great motivational force to get me looking seriously at where I want to go with my artistic career and to take myself seriously.
My first task was to move out my computer and general office supplies/work out of my studio space and into a spare bedroom. I can now delineate tasks such as creative work from the business operation end. I moved some other smaller pieces of furniture out and relocated others in the room, others went into temporary storage. The large desk has to relocate to my husbands classroom, (which he has been asking me for ) and then I will have room to put my long arm quilting machine along the back wall. I never thought that I could possibly fit this machine in here being that it will be on a 10" frame but it will work out perfectly. I just had to think outside of the box. The work has been very rewarding, just check out the after pictures.






Check out the decluttered counter tops, the cleaned off desk. Since I moved out all the non-useful/essential stuff this space seems so much larger. I still have a lot of decluttering to do and downsizing on the amount of supplies I have but for now this is a big change and I am really pleased with the results.
The other benefit is not just the physical space organization but the focus that I have to pursue my desire to own and run my own business. I have put out my proposal letter of machine quilting for others and already I have 4 clients wanting to bring me their first quilting projects.
This class has been very inspirational and motivational. In one of the lessons Alyson shared with us about systems, and that no system works-it is up to us to work the system to see results. That is what I did and these are my results.

Its been a long time.....

I am going to try again to keep this blog up and running. I hope to have some interesting stuff to post soon. Keep your eyes open. I will share some of my latest creations.